


music of the night

by Anonymous



Category: Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
Genre: (i say as though these two are not both Extremely Bisexual), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Crush, Body Dysphoria, Creampie, Cunnilingus, Cutesy, Developing Relationship, Explicit Consent, F/M, First Time, Groping, Hugs, Injury, Kissing, Literal Sleeping Together, Loss of Virginity, Making Out, Not Canon Compliant, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Requited Love, Reunion Sex, Reunions, Sexual Inexperience, Sharing a Bed, Strip Tease, Vaginal Sex, Weird Biology, because god i love to write winslows fucked up phantom body stuff, man i don't even know just take this, this has to be the first het smut i've written since like. age 12, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:35:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29836806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Phoenix investigates a strange sound coming from somewhere inside the even stranger Paradise.
Relationships: Winslow Leach | The Phantom/Phoenix
Kudos: 2
Collections: Anonymous





	music of the night

Phoenix considers herself a perceptive person, for better or for worse. It’s something she’s worked hard on and a skill she finds worth having—that, and her overall high confidence that her perceptions held water, that what she sees is generally what she believes. Which is why when the other chorus girls dismiss her reports of the Phantom—she’s taken to calling him that, thinking distantly of an old book her mother liked—she still sits up in bed each night and writes down each little sound she can hear from her room.

It starts her first night in the Paradise with the footsteps she can hear in whatever room is above her own—muted but heavy, as though someone’s doing pacing circles in big boots a floor above her. Phoenix has always been a light sleeper, and her own shooting-off nerves over, well, _everything_ leave her groaning and making a mental note to chew out whatever girl thought it was a good idea to be doing choreography in platforms at four in the morning. So of course she’s surprised to find out the next morning, making idle conversation in the dressing room in between costume fittings, that not only did no one else hear a thing, but there is in fact no room above her at _all_. Any prodding at what _is_ above her brings up nothing but shrugs, a non-committal “probably just some storage closet”. None of them know all _that_ much about the layout of the strange and labyrinth-esque Paradise other than where they work or live, after all, and (though they keep it to themselves) have their suspicions that construction might not be _quite_ as complete as Swan or that scummy Philbin guy want them to believe. No one seems quite as compelled by the whole thing as Phoenix is—she doesn’t shrug, not even once. Instead she starts paying more attention.

She knows she’s onto something by the second night—footsteps again, on and off, and in the off periods ever-so-faintly the sound of a piano. At times she thinks she can hear what has to be a voice, but writes it off mostly as projection, an imagination fascinated by the alleged storage closet that’s so obviously occupied. Then it isn’t just at night; she rehearses and feels a _presence_ , somewhere in the wings or above her on the catwalk, unshakable with a sort of close blue wind that only she seems to be able to feel. It becomes a running joke, how jumpy poor Phoenix gets and how funny she looks jolting and checking over her shoulder. Never to see anyone there, of course—but Phoenix knows what she feels, feels what she knows. Her Phantom is _real_ , in some nebulous sense of the word, and anything real can be observed… if she tries hard enough.

First she tries to rule out who it might be out of the people she works with—someone who lingers, with a weird little crush on her maybe, who’s too shy or too courteous to play music in their own room. Not one of the girls, that’s for sure; the presence is decidedly masculine to Phoenix, though if you asked her why she probably wouldn’t have been able to articulate it. But the more she thinks about it the less she feels convinced the answer was there, that she can narrow it down to one blushing stagehand and be done with the whole thing… as though before she even began, she knew that wasn’t it. She spends another sleepless night staring up and taking idle notes, imagining the winding circles of some unseen composer’s pacing, trying to piece together a faint melody. Then another night passes, and that night she swears she hears someone distantly beginning to weep—so she’s attached, then. Strange as it is, she can’t help being attached to the one thing that feels consistent in her new Paradise life, the thing that is hers and hers alone.

In the end there’s no real breaking point in which she decides to do something about it; she sits up in bed two nights before the Paradise opens at the sound of a piano slamming thump, the loudest so far, and instead of grabbing her notepad she gets out of bed and into the hallway. Already halfway up the stairs before she realizes she’s on the move, she walks briskly and thinks only of the muted sound her sock-clad feet make on the hardwood. She knows where she’s going—she’d mapped out where the room was early on, working half off building layout and half off intuition. That intuition comes back in full force as she approaches the end of the red hallway, sighing and clutching her fists at her sides before beginning to look around.

She’d been expecting a door of some sort—somewhere—but gets only as close as a padlock on the wall to her right, out of context. She frowns at it as she runs a hand idly down its length, changing her tune as she slowly but surely feels out the faintest lip of a potential opening. She can’t see it, but imagines from the feeling how this part of the wall can slide open as a sort of door… well, in the absence of the lock, of course. She’s walked this hallway a dozen times a day since she got here—how many times had she passed it, failing to look down, notice the thing that was so off about a lock sticking out of the wall? Had she ever even noticed a lock before? She can’t recall; it makes her feel strange, and a little stupid, so she leaves it alone. There are more pressing matters, after all.

Anticipating something along these lines, Phoenix fishes in the pockets of her pajama pants for a paperclip and makes quick work of unraveling it and kneeling to take the padlock on. Drawing from what here will euphemistically be called ‘past experience’, it doesn’t take long for Phoenix to get the lock open, fiddling around with the unwound paper clip until she hears the satisfying _click_ she’s looking for. She grabs the lock before it slides to the floor and puts it in her other pocket before standing again and moving to pull the door open. Heavier than she expected—her arms shake and strain with the weight of it, compounded by the wonder and fear of what exactly is _in_ this room that must be locked away. Once she pulls it open just enough to slide through, she opens her eyes—not realizing she’d closed them in the first place—and slides the door closed behind her once more before turning and finally taking in the oh-so-secret “supply closet” above her room.

She winds up first in a different room, some small gap behind the wall. There’s another door, though one with a handle this time, and one blissfully unlocked—Phoenix is glad for the strangely anti-climactic reveal, giving her a moment to recenter herself and see with a clear head. So she pulls the handle swiftly on _that_ door, for a second its strange, because all it seems to be is… your typical run-of-the-mill recording studio. All sorts of amps and dials lining the walls that hurt Phoenix’s head to even think about operating, a reasonable looking piano, piles upon piles of sheet music… all pretty standard. She’s almost a little let down. But why _here_? Why locked away? That spark of intrigue stays, at least.

Phoenix doesn’t notice the man until much later than she should have, and the sight of him almost makes her scream before she claps a hand over her mouth and remembers what she’s doing.

He’s slumped over the piano in some kind of strange costume—all black and leather with a long cape and what looks like a silver helmet on his head. He doesn’t move, not even as Phoenix approaches him out of a rapidly blooming concern that soon overtakes any caution she might have had. That concern crystalizes into frozen ice-cold fear once she sees the near-empty bottle of pills spilled near his mouth, jumping to the worst conclusion, but she’s able to breathe again once she sees him shift ever so slightly in whatever stupor he’s drugged into. Asleep, not dead—a relief deeper than Phoenix has known in a long time. She’s still attached to him, she supposes, the figure she assumes on a gut feeling must be her stomping, piano-playing, weeping Phantom.

That attachment sends her on another step forward, then another, towards him before she knows exactly what she’s doing. The concern has refused to leave her, after all; as though controlling her body for her, she watches her arm reach out and rest alien on his shoulder, the hand shaking ever so slightly. 

“Hey, hey, are you alright?”

No answer; he’s in deep. She frowns, shakes with more intent as consequence starts to take a backseat to worry. “Hello…?”

Then he jolts slightly, and Phoenix takes a staggering step back away from the piano as though she’s been burned. Only watching him stir does she start to think she might’ve acted rashly—put herself into a Situation with a capital S—but she’s not one to leave something she started unfinished. That, and she feels almost frozen in place, watching this strange figure wake slowly as he tries and eventually succeeds to sit up at the piano.

It’s not so much a helmet after all, but a mask; a silver mask that covers the top half of his face and tapers down into a beak-like point. All Phoenix can really see is his mouth, black lipstick smeared from where his face had been pressed against the top of the piano. There’s an eyehole in the mask she can see, but no eye—it’s all blacked in. Before Phoenix has the chance to think about that, he turns towards her as though on cue to reveal the shockingly blue, bloodshot eye whose twin must be concealed on the other side of the mask. He blinks a few times, looking straight at her, and it chills Phoenix, making her aware that _he_ can look too, that she’s strange and observable just the same. 

But then he speaks: “Phoenix…?”

His voice—it makes Phoenix recoil on instinct before realizing how cruel that might seem. Clipping and jittery, distorted electronically, above all not _normal_. That’s the most concrete way Phoenix can think of it—like human twice removed, some fundamental thing missing. Less poetically, like he’s talking through a shitty speaker. It takes her a second too long to realize what he said is her _name_ , and _that_ finally freaks her out good and thorough, blood going ice and staying that way.

“How do y—”

“Don’t be scared,” he continues, the one eye focusing on her; for how groggy and out of it he’d woken up, he now seemed energized by recognizing her presence. He doesn’t stand and go to her, but flinches just slightly like he wants to and doesn’t know how. “Please, Phoenix.” As he speaks, there’s a box mounted on his chest that goes off with blue and orange lights—Phoenix notices it for the first time, and doesn’t make sense of it so much as she makes a correlation. “It’s me—Winslow.”

And for a split second Phoenix takes him on face value— _It’s Winslow, of course_ —and her heart winces hard before she recoils at herself almost more than she does at him. She steps away from him, shaking her head, unsure of what else to do. 

“Winslow’s dead,” she counters, but her voice wavers.

“Not quite.”

Something about it starts to piss her off, then—like, how dare this creep pretend to be Winslow, right?—and she relishes it, a little bit. Good to finally feel something tangible about it, make sense of her own emotion. “No way.”

The man—right, not Winslow, the man—grimaces, and Phoenix gets a glimpse of his teeth: all silver chrome, catching the light unnaturally and putting a chill through her. “I _swear_ , it’s me. Phoenix—”

“Take the mask off and show me,” Phoenix cuts him off, flighty as the strange bird whose head he’s hidden his face with. “I mean, if its really you, then show me.” Somewhere distantly she knows she meant to say _him_ , realizing too late to go back on it, and wonders with a vague nausea if she’s been convinced already.

But he hesitates, posture stiffening— _of course_. “Isn’t there another way I can prove it?”

“Do you _have_ another way to prove it?”

He’s silent, but Phoenix reads that as enough of an answer. She’s not afraid anymore—and even when she was, it wasn’t of him. That feels strange to her, that there’s this weird and physically imposing stranger in here who knows her name and she’s not frightened, but there’s just an energy to him that Phoenix _can’t_ be frightened by. Meek, if she had to put one word to it. Winslow had been the same way, now that she thinks about it, and it makes her feel sadder and more strange than before.

“Listen—” _Winslow_ , she almost adds to the end before stopping herself; but she doesn’t believe it, no, not really. “If you just _show_ me I’ll believe you. If you’re telling the truth. But how can I trust you when I can’t even see your _face_?” She doesn’t bring up the secondary reasoning behind her insistence: that she _wants_ to see his face. Right, she wants to know her Phantom, know the face of the man whose music she’s been listening to through the ceiling all this time, who’s been lingering unseen in her auditions and rehearsals, whose presence even now felt familiar and strangely _comforting_ —the man who _has_ to be Winslow, or else Phoenix doesn’t know what to do.

He waits for just a moment, still hesitant, before sighing hard enough that Phoenix can watch it rack his body. Then he reaches up, hands shaking, and puts his head down as he slowly pulls the mask off of his head and rests it on the piano.

And Phoenix knows it’s Winslow even before it’s all the way off—of _course_ it’s Winslow. As little as she knew him, his face still lingers prevalent in the foreground of her mind, and she recognizes the line of his jaw and his fluffy hair in a second. But that’s not what captures her attention in the split second before Winslow brings a gloved hand up to hide half of his face. He’s not fast enough to stop her from seeing the burns there: burns undeniably, skin warped in a nauseating angry reddish hue around a sightless clouded eye. The other half of his face, shown freely to Phoenix as Winslow turns to face her with a wavering, nervous expression, cinches it for her more than anything else. 

“Winslow, oh my god—”

Before she decides to she’s walking towards him with staggering, deliberate steps, half kneeling next to where he’s seated and putting her arms around him in an attempt at a hug. He flinches a little at the sudden touch, but tension leaves his shoulders with a whistling digital sigh as he goes to do the same. Somewhere in their hug he stands, and they navigate awkwardly together to a position in the middle of the small room that lets them hug unimpeded. Their height difference means Winslow has to lean over to fill the space, resting his head on her shoulder—just like the last time they’d met and done this, what felt like an entire lifetime ago.

"Are you okay?" Phoenix whispers before they part, despite how obvious the answer seems. Winslow doesn't hide the scarred half of his face with his hand anymore, but turns away just slightly, trying to keep it out of view. All that does is draw Phoenix's attention even more, leaving a frown on her face that she feels will stay for a long while.

"I don't know. I think so. I think I'm okay for now." Without the mask, the distorted voice—the sound of which Phoenix realizes is coming out of the box mounted on his chest, not his mouth—is even more unsettling.

"But all the papers said you were—" suddenly Phoenix can't muster up the word, though she hardly needs to. "Your face—your _voice_ —what happened…?"

"I don't know if I can explain it. It won't sound real."

"Please try. I want to—I have to hear it. It's something bad… isn't it…?"

And Winslow doesn't answer that question straight away; he sighs profoundly, swallows hard, and begins his story. As much as he can understand it himself, as much as he remembers in his periodic hazes—and it's something _bad_. It horrifies Phoenix, to hear what he's been through: horrifies her and makes her feel uprooted, shaken in the upheaval of what she'd felt was a truth. A sort of guilt fills her, too, to think of how implicit she might be—gear in the machine that was the Paradise, that to her now starts seeming less and less like one. Accompanying it is an _anger,_ impotent rage with too many potential targets to be made anything more than an irritating itch unable to be scratched. But above all in that mess of feelings she feels the greatest sense of sadness, sympathy for poor Winslow and the hand he was dealt that no person on earth deserves. She starts crying early on, openly but quietly weeping as she lets him speak his piece; though she tries not to look at him in respect of his obvious self-consciousness, she thinks she sees tears threatening at the corner of his one good eye.

Winslow doesn't speak for a long time after he's finished, and neither does Phoenix. When he finally breaks their silence, its nearly inaudible, a small and cowering voice— "Can I put the mask back on… please."

Phoenix just nods. As he picks it up and places it on his head again, his shoulders droop with relief.

"Oh, Winslow—I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. It's not your fault."

"Still—if there was something I could do—"

"Could you hug me again?"

Phoenix is thrown off by the straightforwardness of the request, and Winslow looks away—somehow still visibly bashful even under the mask. _Cute._

"Yeah, sure I can."

She throws her arms back around him like it's the easiest thing in the world. Right, this _is_ something she can do, facing the enormity of everything that happened—something she _wants_ to do, fundamentally. He's comfortable to hug, if a little bonier than last time they met (which Phoenix has to actively keep herself from worrying about).

"So… you've been in here since I auditioned…?"

"Yes. All week… at least I think it's been a week."

"Watching me?" Phoenix cocks an eyebrow as her voice takes on the slightest of teasing tones. Now that their reunion has settled comfortably past its first intensity, now that her tears for him have dried, she can get down to the _other_ part of all this—the part that's been lingering in the back of her head this whole time. "Following me around? Huh, Winslow?" 

When they separate he keeps his head down, looking away from her, and Phoenix fears she's been too accusatory in her little tease—she's about to speak again and clarify before Winslow pipes up in a low and nervous tone that is so clearly _Winslow_ even under all the distortion. It stuns Phoenix, even after seeing his face—it’s really him. "I just wanted to hear you sing again… I haven't been able to get your voice out of my head. It's the most beautiful voice I've ever heard. My cantata—" he gestures vaguely around at the impressive collection of sheet music that fills the room alongside them. "I'm rewriting it for you."

_For me…?_

"Awh, Winslow—" it's a gesture Phoenix doesn't know what to do with, that makes her heart skip a little like she's firmly seventeen again and still believes in love—she has to make a joke about it, out it in terms she understands beyond the bio response of her body and her mind. "That's too sweet. Really. What, you got a little crush on me or something?"

And she doesn't know what answer she expects, exactly, but it's not the one she gets, that's for sure. Winslow opens his mouth for a second like he’s going to retort—giving Phoenix another nice shot of those strange metal teeth, sad in context—before promptly shutting it and looking away, bringing an awkward idle hand to his face. Phoenix imagines she can see him blushing even under the mask. She gives him a second to choose whether or not he’s going to speak before she prods him, gently, of course:

“Winslow…?”

“...Maybe a little one,” he eventually concedes. It puts a smile on Phoenix’s face—the answer she wanted.

She can’t deny that she’s thought about it before, a little bit. After that first night they met she found him returning habitually to her mind, equal parts concerned for and enamored with the tall stranger who’d caused such a scene at her first audition (awful a night as that had been). Most of it had been swept away in the face of all the news about him that seemed to roll in after that, but it had never gone away completely. It felt at best hard and at worst silly to have caught feelings for a dead crazy guy you’d barely met, after all. But now all of that hard and silly stuff is _over_ ; he’s not dead, and he’s not crazy (well, at least not in any way that would deter Phoenix, which is maybe just a little different from the average definition of crazy). It’s like starting over again from the beginning, in some weird twisted new context. But they’re _here_ now, aren’t they? Together? The smile stays, despite how strange everything is.

“Well, _maybe_ I like you too.”

His one eye blinks once, twice in confusion behind the mask as what she’s said washes over him in a slow recognition. Then a smile comes over his face—tight lipped, hiding his strange teeth, but a smile nonetheless. “Huh…?”

“Come on, Winslow, don’t play dumb,” Phoenix teases. One of her hands idly reaches for his, and she’s pleased at how he takes it and holds it like something precious and unfamiliar. “You know what I said. Maybe I like you too. What do you think about that?”

Well, he doesn’t seem to know _what_ he thinks about that, not in any way he says or any way Phoenix can read on his face. He looks away quickly like he’s embarrassed—but squeezes her hand tightly, affirmingly. That’s a good sign, right? Phoenix takes it as one, not so much steps but leans closer to him like she’s going in for another hug. She looks up at him, and he looks down at her; she wishes she could see his face, but understands. She feels like she’s starting to understand quite a few things now, actually. With a guy like him, it’s on her to make the first move… not that she has any complaints about that, of course. If anything, it’s her preference.

“You’re so shy… let me spell it out for you. You like me, yeah? And I like you too… so let’s do something about it. You wanna kiss me?”

She can see his breath catch in his throat, not believing what he’s heard, and Phoenix isn’t too proud to admit it’s a little bit of an ego boost. He’s so still and so quiet for a long time… but just as Phoenix’s confidence starts wavering he gives a meek little nod that drives her crazy. She wants to tease him a little more, get him to say it, but she's figured by now he's not too keen on talking all that more than he has to. She doesn't think _she'd_ be too keen on it either, in his situation.

Instead she just smiles up at him and takes the next step-lean she needs to press their bodies up close again. She reluctantly lets go of his hand to bring it up along with its partner to cup both of Winslow's cheeks, fingertips sliding just slightly under the mask to feel the skin there. She coaxes his head downwards to close the gap between them. It takes a little bit of maneuvering around the mask—the beak gets in her way more than a couple of times—but soon enough she's found just the right angle at which to press her lips to his.

It’s a sweet little kiss at first—they hold like that for just a moment, almost hilariously chaste, before they pull away and Phoenix tries to read Winslow’s face for a reaction.

“Was that any good...?”

He nods more vigorously than before, then does one better and puts his hands on her waist. Nervously at first, like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed, but slowly blooming into a more confident grip once he realizes Phoenix isn’t pushing him away. Then it’s _him_ who leans down to kiss _her_ , squeezing her ever so slightly as their lips meet once again. _That’s_ more like it.

Then they’re kissing properly, pulling away only for short, gasping breaths and then diving right back in. Phoenix encourages Winslow to part his lips, letting her snake her tongue into his mouth and explore. She runs it over his teeth and is distantly surprised at the strange tang of metal she can taste—like when she was a kid compelled to suck on coins or chew idly on the zippers of her clothes. It thrills her with how strange and unexpected it is, makes her shiver. Her arms slide down comfortably onto Winslow’s shoulders, fitting them together.

“I’ve never kissed a girl before,” Winslow whispers low and confessional in one of their shared breathing gaps; at a low volume the electronic distortion on the words makes them near incomprehensible. A fun little comeback itches at the back of her throat— _well, shit, Winslow, you could’ve fooled me—_ but it dies as he leans back in again and keeps at it.

Their kiss grows more heated at an almost dizzying pace, without any intent from either of them; all Phoenix is thinking is she needs to get _closer_ , and then, oops, she’s kinda-sorta grinding on him and gasping _hard_ with every frantic breath. She knows Winslow’s feeling it too—he’s breathing so hard and his chest is pushing against hers in a dramatic rhythm, the corners of the box that holds his voice digging into her chest. She hardly notices the intrusion. The sound of his breathing doesn’t get picked up by the synthesizer, left human and natural near her ear—it makes her heart go crazy in her ribcage. Winslow’s a good boy, so his hands stay firmly at their station on her hips, resisting the urge to wander—but he can’t fool Phoenix. Their bodies are pressed right up against each other, after all, and there’s _one thing_ he doesn’t stand a chance trying to hide.

“Winslow…?” Phoenix raises an eyebrow at him, a satisfied little smile spreading instinctively on her face. “Having a good time…?” Even under the mask, the look on his face tells her they both know what she’s referring to. For good measure she coyly pulls one leg up, running her thigh up against Winslow’s painfully obvious erection.

“Phoenix—” He starts and can’t finish, squeaking a little at the movement and gripping her hips suddenly tighter. His breath catches in his chest and brings those corners right up into her tits again, a sort of pressure she supposes she’s getting Pavloved for. “Phoenix, I can’t believe—” He tries to start again, but it all seems like too much for the poor guy to handle on top of already having trouble speaking. Phoenix is amused and delighted to find that the electronic clipping of the synthetic voice she’d found so off putting before is now kind of a turn on. Now used to it, it sends heat rushing fast to the bottom of her stomach—but maybe that’s just knowing it’s _Winslow_ ’s synthetic voice.

"Shh," she murmurs to him, "don't talk if it's hard. It's okay. I can probably talk enough for the both of us."

"It's not hard," Winslow protests, but Phoenix can hear the strain at the edges from more than just his arousal. Besides, he gets awful quiet once she starts talking again, letting her arms stray from their position around his shoulders and trail down his chest before mirroring the hold he has on her hips.

"You know, when we met that first night I thought about doing it with you." Now it's Phoenix's turn to confess, blushing a little despite herself. "Just in passing… but I thought about it, sure I did. What'd be like. Wondered if I should've made a move on you after all."

"Really…?"

"Well, yeah, really. I mean, you were so sweet and enthusiastic, Winslow. I love that in a guy. And I thought you had a cute butt," she winks for comic effect and gives him a friendly squeeze that makes him squeak. "Mm, and you're so _tall_ … I couldn't help wonder about how _proportional_ you might be. I think any girl would."

That gives her a window of opportunity to move a hand between Winslow's legs and do some research for herself. She starts touching him experimentally through the costume, rubbing mostly the palm of her hand against him and watching intently for how it makes him twitch and shiver from (she extrapolates from his previous comment) the new sensation.

"Is that okay…?"

"Yes—Phoenix—" he starts strong, but the words abandon him once again—this time replaced by an undeniable, bonafide _moan_. A sound just loud enough to get half-picked up and amplified by the synthesizer, putting a distinct electronic edge on what's otherwise so natural—it catches Phoenix off guard and makes her have to swallow hard and cross her legs tightly. The voice thing really _is_ a turn on.

"Sorry—I guess it _is_ kind of hard—"

"Don't worry about it, Winslow," Phoenix assures with a small smirk, increases the pressure she's putting on him with her palm to finally make the inevitable dirty joke. "I can _tell_."

Winslow gasps, putty under her touch already. Phoenix likes him so much, more than she can say, and realizes it distantly apart from this context now.

"So, what do you think? Should we?" Phoenix eggs him on, unable to keep a smile off her face as she keeps idly grinding her palm down. "Because _I_ wanna do it with you. And it seems like _you_ wanna do it with _me_ , too."

Winslow just swallows hard, shivers a little. Phoenix hesitates, still learning how to read him.

"If you don't wanna talk, you can nod or shake your head instead—"

Before she fully finishes speaking he's nodding to her, fingers tapping anxious against her waist where he hasn't once let go of her. Seems clear enough. That smile on Phoenix's face, previously threatened, cements itself as a firm grin.

"Then let's do it."

She has an idea already of how she wants to go about this. Thinking the logistics through, she wriggles out of his grasp and takes a few steps back from him, unable to keep a little giggle from herself as she watches confusion dawn on Winslow's posture.

"Watch me," she asks more than commands, but it doesn't take much to keep his intense gaze on her—especially as she brings her hands up to promptly begin unbuttoning her top. The shock in his one widening eye as she pulls the shirt open to give him a good look is worth more than money can buy.

"Convenient, right? You're lucky I'm in my pajamas. Less hassle for you… no pesky unhooking to do." She makes the same quick work of her pajama pants, pushing them down to her ankles and stepping out of the legs with little ceremony, then kicks them to the side as she walks briskly over to the piano. She scrabbles a little to sit on top of it with a clattering of random keys—less sexy than she thought it would be, but she doesn’t think Winslow minds too much—then turns to face him with a coy expression and her legs tightly crossed.

As Winslow turns to face her in her new position, frozen solid by his rapt focus, Phoenix reaches down and pulls her underwear off, showing it to him with a half-restrained glint of mischief in her eyes before flinging it in the general direction of her other clothes. She makes direct eye contact with Winslow—who looks just about stunned into submission right now, by the way—and grins.

“Well, come on, Winslow. You’ve got a naked chorus girl on top of your piano… I’m sure you composer types must fantasise about this kind of thing all the time. So come show me what you want, yeah? I’m all yours.”

For a long moment he still just stands there, breathing. Phoenix considers this for a second—then spreads her legs slow and deliberate, watching him watch her as her feet land on another discordant collection of keys. For how polite he’s been this whole time, Phoenix finds great joy in how his eye _immediately_ darts downwards, how he almost-immediately takes two eager and nervous steps in her direction. Like he’s just now realized he’s not only allowed, but being _asked to_.

He slows down a little once he’s right in front of her, staring down the considerable height difference between them with his mouth slightly ajar—a look Phoenix wants so badly to kiss off of him. He stands close, hands tense at his sides as though he’s waiting for another request, for more instructions.

“Do you still want to keep the mask on…?”

Winslow tenses a bit, embarrassed, but slowly nods in response. Phoenix understands, brings a reassuring hand up to his flushed cheek and gently touches the damaged skin there. She doesn’t have any idea how much he can feel it with how burned he is, but the thought seems to count enough to make him relax a little, drop his shoulders. She rubs small idle circles with her thumb as she speaks again.

“Don’t even worry about it, Winslow, it’s okay by me. Can I take your gloves off, though?” She asks, moving her hand from his face downwards to grab one of his own and hold it. “The leather just kinda skeeves me out… and I wanna feel you.”

It comes out strangely more vulnerable than she intended it too, more needy—but that’s okay, maybe. The hand she’s holding has been nervous and limp at the wrist, but at that Winslow squeezes her hand back, nods with a little more _oomph_ this time. Phoenix takes that ad permission to slide the glove off that hand, send it flying in the inconsequential direction of her clothes. Even if she hadn't seen his face before, Phoenix thinks, she'd have recognized his hands: so decidedly the hands of a pianist, long fingers and prominent knuckles. She makes quick work of the remaining glove and situates Winslow's now bare hands on the sides of her face.

He flinches a little when his hands make contact, like he can't believe the feeling of her skin under his rough fingers. He keeps them there for a moment, still but for gentle rubbing motions with his thumbs in a mirror of what she’d been doing earlier; then slowly he moves down her neck to her shoulders, making her shiver all the way down to his inevitable destination.

She gasps louder than she means to once he reaches her breasts and starts feeling her up with the experimental nervousness of the virgin he so obviously is. Even through the mask she can see just how intently Winslow is looking down at her, his one eye focused and lit up with undeniable arousal. Phoenix can't decide whether she thinks it's sexy or adorable.

"Never done _this_ with a girl before either, huh?"

He gulps visibly in lieu of nodding, communicating the same thing. Phoenix smiles lazily at him; distantly she wishes she could run her fingers through his hair, remembering how light and fluffy it had been the night they met.

He's painfully shy about touching her, slow and hesitating like he's thinking through every move. To his credit, he's bold enough to lightly pinch one of Phoenix's nipples, eliciting what she hopes is an encouraging gasp as she squeezes her thighs tightly. She bites her lip as she squirms under his anxious touch—it's so good, but not enough. Her arousal builds to the point of tension, uncomfortable; she can feel how wet she is already and squeezes her thighs tight together. She needs something _more_. The poor guy's a tease and he probably doesn't even know it.

"Don't be shy," she coaxes in a breathy voice. "Don't hold back. You can touch me harder."

"I don't want to hurt you," he returns quietly, voice low in what renders as an electronic gust of wind. It's genuine and fearful enough that Phoenix has to sit with it a second, before she puts her hands back on his face to gently console him.

"You're not gonna hurt me, Winslow. I _know_ you're not gonna hurt me. I'm not _that_ fragile, you know," her voice lilts in a light joke. “Do what you want. And don’t try and act like you don’t want anything… I _know_ something dirty’s going on in that metal head of yours.” She brings her hand to the back of his head to knock lightly on the helmet with her knuckles, still attempting to reassure even as her voice slips back down into a low tease that makes Winslow shiver.

“Do what I want…?”

Phoenix nods, encouraging. Winslow’s hands still, and he seems to think about it for a moment as his eye travels downwards once again—then before Phoenix knows it he’s kneeling in front of her, knees hitting the ground with a definitive thudding of carpet.

It’s definitely not what she was expecting, but like hell is she complaining. _Especially_ not as Winslow quickly trails his hands down from her chest and over her waist and hips to land squarely on her thighs. He pushes at them just the slightest, hesitant as he is, but Phoenix picks up the slack quickly and spreads her legs wider for him with the discordant slamming of a few more piano keys.

“Oh?” She breathes out, as if she doesn’t know what Winslow’s doing (or at the very least isn’t drawing her own conclusions on what she _hopes_ he’s doing). He only answers by nervously pressing a reverential kiss to her inner thigh, making Phoenix squeak a little as his black lipstick smears against the sensitive skin there. Probably the first time a _guy's_ gotten lipstick all over _her_ and not the other way around, she thinks with an amused wonder. The beak of the mask digs into her flesh just a little in an experience not so much unpleasant as it is just entirely unfamiliar.

He moves further in, towards home plate, and just as he's close enough for Phoenix to feel his hot breath against her he pauses and looks up as if for reassurance. At this point all Phoenix can think of doing is nodding eagerly, mouth agape as her breath comes ragged—she's been so patient this whole time, but if Winslow doesn't get his mouth on her _right this fucking second_ she'll throw a fit.

Lucky for her she doesn't have to wait very much longer. Winslow moves his head a fraction of an inch and tentatively licks a wide stripe over her pussy, stopping and starting as he finds a way to move with the intrusion of the mask. Phoenix moans out loud for the first time since their little encounter started.

"Fuck—that's it, baby—"

Instinctually she moves to sink her fingers onto his hair, but they hit the helmet portion of the mask and she remembers with a little flicker of embarrassment. She settles for putting both hands palms-down on the helmet, evoking the idea as closely as she can. 

Phoenix doesn't have any real metaphor or poetic language she can summon up to describe how it feels—it's _good_ , pleasure in the most basic human definition of the word. She's not too proud to admit it's _been a while_ ; despite what the press might have you think, there's actually not all that much time for wild meaningless sex in the music industry when you're still working your way into it. It's been even longer since she had a boyfriend willing to return the favor and go down on _her_ once in a while… and she doesn't think she's _ever_ slept with a guy who enjoyed it as much as Winslow seems to. From the sounds he's making and the way he's squirming where he kneels between her thighs, you'd think it felt even better for _him_. His enthusiasm makes up for his lack of experience in spades.

Winslow keeps up the good work, tongue moving against and even experimentally inside of her without any rhyme or reason beyond what just feels like total devotion. Unable to exactly predict his movements, he keeps Phoenix on edge, drawing moans and embarrassingly high pitched squeaks from her parted lips. Her brain catapults between familiarity and strangeness, how well she knows Winslow in her memory versus how different he is now. Every now and again the mask presses up against her clit with a pressure that’s shockingly pleasurable—she flinches from the sensation each time, expecting something cold and inhuman, but its so warm and natural from his body heat. It’s part of him: it’s _Winslow_. Winslow who she barely knew but still thought of, felt so fondly for, who she gushed about to her roommate first night she came back from her audition and was teased about ever since. And she put up with that teasing because she really _liked_ the guy, thought he was sweet, wanted to see him again. Seeing him again now, those feelings bubble up only stronger, almost out of her control. There’s a four letter word that looms over her thoughts, one that’s historically scared her off—but it could be okay now, maybe, with him.

Closer from the very beginning than she thought she was, her orgasm takes her by enough surprise that for a second she feels like _she’s_ the virgin in this situation. Her breath hitches in her throat as she gasps out loud, fingers pressing harder against the helmet as her legs wrap around his shoulders on instinct to lock the poor guy in. Not like he’s complaining, of course, not from how he whimpers as Phoenix rides out her orgasm against his face.

Once she can think again she releases him, legs dropping limply on either side of where he’s still kneeling and weakly hitting a few notes on the piano. Phoenix huffs out a definite, satisfied breath and rests on her elbows, head lolling back and sending her gaze up to the high ceiling.

“ _Damn,_ Winslow… you’re _sure_ you’ve never done that before?” She jokes when she can think of words to say, leaning back up just in time to watch him meekly nod. He’s breathing so hard, and his lipstick is _so_ fucked up and smeared all around his mouth—probably smeared all over _her_ , too, black marks on her pale inner thighs. Even just looking at him is making her feel hot and bothered all over again.

But even more than that, what washes over her when she looks at him in the aftermath is such profound _sappiness_ —liking him so much and hardly knowing what to do with it. What she opts for is to sit herself up again, stretch her arms out towards him and murmur almost incoherently. “Come on… c’mere… Winslow…”

He picks up on what she means soon enough and stands on violently shaky legs, leaning forward a bit too fast and a bit too hard to wrap around her tightly. Phoenix returns the favor tenfold… and squeaks with pleasant surprise as he promptly lifts her up off of the piano and effortlessly into his arms. He’s _strong_ , for such a skinny guy. Phoenix wraps her legs around his waist and feels just how hard he is still; her heart flutters in anticipation for wherever he’s carrying her off to.

Winslow puts her down again on an expanse of dark green shag carpet she hadn’t seen on her first sweep of the room, in between the room where the piano sits and what looks to Phoenix’s quick glance to be a darkened recording booth. Of course, she’s paying only the most minimal attention to her surroundings as her back hits the carpet and she looks up at Winslow hovering close over her. How nice it would be to see his face right now in full, burnt and warped as it might be—she feels a tinge of sadness at that, but pushes it out of her mind as best she can. In its place, she reaches up to pull him down towards her and press their lips together once again. The second their kiss connects and their bodies meet again, Phoenix trails her hands down to start undressing him, not intending to keep him waiting any longer than he already has—but its a task _much_ easier said than done.

“Uhm—” Phoenix laughs nervously as their kiss parts, giving up on her fumbling search for buttons or a zipper with a wry smile. “Sorry—I don’t know how it works. I think the voice box is getting in the way—”

“Yes,” Winslow confirms her train of thought, voice feeling new again from how long he’s been quiet for. “I have to unplug it… I won’t be able to talk.” His synthetic voice wavers with fully human hesitation, eye darting away and avoiding Phoenix’s gaze behind the mask.

Phoenix moves to rub small circles on his back in an attempt at comforting, and it seems to work out okay: she can feel a bit of his tension leave the muscles there, arms shaking a little as he keeps himself propped up on his elbows. “That’s alright by me, Winslow. If you need to stop you can tap me on the shoulder or something. But are _you_ okay with it?”

He thinks for a moment before nodding just a little, and Phoenix gives him a soft smile in return. Their faces are still close enough to kiss—so she can’t resist going in for a small peck before she speaks up again. “Then alright. I don’t want to mess anything up, so you should probably do it…”

Winslow nods more firmly and sits upright, straddling Phoenix’s hips and bringing his hands to his neck to begin the unknowable process of dismantling his voice. It’s Phoenix’s turn to prop herself on her elbows now as she watches the scene unfold, what she supposes is some bizarre foil to her own striptease earlier. It’s still sexy in a way she doesn’t exactly have the language to describe, watching him gently disconnect the cord and slide the box’s harness off his shoulders before setting it down on the carpet a little ways away with profound caution. Part of it is just from how obviously turned on he is himself: panting hard, face clearly flushed under the mask, tenting his boxer briefs once he finally gets that damn costume off. More psychologically, it’s the _vulnerability_ of it all that gets Phoenix going, the way he’s putting himself in her hands.

She can’t resist using those hands to pull him back down on top of her, kissing him breathlessly as she reaches to tug at the waistband of his underwear and undress him the rest of the way in one quick and eager action. She breaks their kiss and scoots back a little to get an eyeful— _well, he sure seems proportional after all_ , she thinks. Part of her is tempted to get her mouth on him, return the same favor he so enthusiastically did for her, but she thinks she has a pretty good idea of what Winslow really wants. She intends to give it to him; she leans in to press a laughably chaste kiss to his cheek before lying down on the carpet again and spreading her legs, inviting him (no, _asking_ him) to do it.

“Go ahead, Winslow—you can fuck me.”

Saying like that feels strange and ill fitting—too blunt for what this thing they’re doing really is, something more intimate and total than that word describes. Winslow whimpers, a few pained sounding gurgles leaving his throat with a wince as his lips form the shape of words that won’t come. Phoenix puts one finger to those lips, stopping them in their tracks.

“Shh, don’t try and talk. It’s okay. If you want to, just do it. _I_ want you to do it.”

She can feel him right up against her, equal parts equal and nervous—his lips move again with a quieter sound from the back of his throat, and this time she can read his lips. He’s saying _Phoenix_ , _Phoenix_ , and she realizes she’s never heard him say her name out loud. She tries to reconstruct and approximation of what the sound would be from her memory of his voice, distant as it might be: “Phoenix,” the Winslow in her head whispers, and at the same time the Winslow here in front of her whimpers again and finally pushes inside of her.

Phoenix gasps hard as she feels him for the first time, shaking hands reaching for his back and gripping desperately there. Feeling the skin—his unexpectedly soft skin, the bumps of his shoulder blades, the rhythmic pulse from his shallow breath. All these parts of him are _real_ , and _here_ , and they're together like this as if they’re normal people, as if everything’s fine. Well, everything _is_ fine right now. Without the voice box she can hear him breathing entirely unfiltered, natural in her ear where he anchors his lips to the side of her neck. It’s that _sound_ that makes her breath catch in a moan even more so than the rest of it, her whole body full and realized. She opens her mouth to say something and little comes out but Winslow’s name, evening the playing field between them.

“Winslow— _yes_ , Winslow—”

And poor Winslow doesn’t last very long, but Phoenix hadn’t expected him to anyway. He whimpers and whines as he hurriedly thrusts his hips against her, culminating in a high gurgling moan as he fills her with what feels like an obscene amount of cum. Phoenix shivers all over, eyes widening with a sharp and wavering inhale as she does it, and realizes retroactively that _she_ came, too—first time in her life she’s been able to get there from a guy doing that. Dazed in the aftermath of everything, her head rolls back as a goofy smile spreads over her face, some strange warm happiness washing over her completely.

“Winslow,” Phoenix murmurs in a daze, almost too quiet to hear herself. “Winslow, come on, kiss me.”

He whimpers again and obediently searches for her lips, kissing lazily on and off for what feels like an eternity as they lay together, intertwined at all possible points of contact as though they intend to meld into one superbeing. For a moment Phoenix could almost imagine that little else existed, that the sum of their world was their two bodies and this surprisingly warm and comfortable shag carpet… almost. The context of it all still pricks her vaguely, somewhere far off but still visible looming as a dark cloud over her calm. As best as she can, she tries to banish it from her mind. That was then, and at some point in the future it will be, but it’s not here, not now with Winslow breathing against her in such an even and relaxed rhythm.

She lies still, not thinking and kissing him, until the absolute last moment in which it’s still a comfortable position to be in. She knows at some point that they’ll have to get up, after all. She feels so warm and sleepy in that tropey way, and part of her is tempted to just forget everything and fall asleep with him right here on the floor… but another idea comes to mind and she taps him lightly on the shoulder to get his attention, wriggling a little under his now kind of dead-feeling weight.

“Hey, Winslow… you sleep in here, right?”

He lifts his head a little to make eye contact with her, an embarrassed grimace wrinkling his expression for a second before he ambiguously nods.

“Just over at the piano?”

Another nod, less flimsy and more communicative this time. Phoenix frowns for him; an idea is coming slow and watery to her mind, wrapping around her tongue and slipping into every word. “That’s gotta kill your back… do you want to sleep in my bed tonight? With me?”

Winslow pauses a little at that—not out of hesitation, Phoenix can tell, but out of disbelief shining wide and almost unbearably cute in his eye. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but shuts it again soon enough and just swallows hard. Phoenix reads a word in, playing back his voice on the tape recorder of her memory: _Really?_

“Yeah, really,” Phoenix answers out loud, not caring how strange and out-of-place the words might land. “You and me in a real bed. It’s super comfortable. We can cuddle and everything… it’ll be sweet. And you can get a real night’s sleep, yeah?”

His face softens, slowly but surely relaxing into a sappy putty of warm feelings. When he nods it’s less of an active motion and almost more as though his whole being is moving as a fluid, gentle and at ease. Phoenix realizes distantly that her cheeks are starting to hurt from smiling, but she knows she’ll probably stay smiling for a long, long time.

Phoenix _considers_ re-dressing before the two of them leave the recording studio, sure, but in the end it feels like a waste of time—and there’s some kind of perverse and juvenile thrill at moving through the Paradise fully nude, quickly darting from space to space in its vacant fluorescent lit hallways. No one there to see but video cameras, blindly gathering footage buried underneath hours and hours of Paradise activity, a brief blip that means nothing to the machine and everything to the humans it traps on film.

And they make it to Phoenix’s single bed, and they lay in it, together. Winslow holds her tightly in his arms as if afraid he’ll wake up and she won’t be there, afraid he’ll find himself back at his piano with an aching back and a faint blush lingering on his cheeks. Phoenix is more afraid of the opposite—that he’ll flee in the middle of the night and she’ll wake up alone in this bed unable to tell the difference between dream and memory. 

Where do they go from here? The thought pricks her brain with a white-hot anxiety, like something in there is being stirred up and scrambled for one wincing moment. But she closes her eyes and it washes out of her, ushered away by Winslow’s eager and more-than-a-little-bony embrace. Within moments she feels herself slipping into sleep, a sleep she already knows will be deeper and more fulfilling than any sleep she has had in a long time. She settles into Winslow’s arms, putting her own around his waist, and drifts off marveling at the wonderful circumstance of it—that he should even be here at all, that they should even meet again and share touch as freely as if nothing had happened, as if picking up seamlessly where they had unceremoniously left off.


End file.
